


The Visible World

by havisham



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, M/M, Master/Slave, Rome + Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You are brave and you are useless, and soon, you will be forgotten.  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visible World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [toucanpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/toucanpie/gifts).



Esca was a battered unit, almost twenty years old, and he was sold to Uncle Aquila at a discount so deep it was insulting. But the insult did not stop there; the seller warned that he would bring trouble, that his previous masters had all come to a bad end. But Aquila insisted, and Esca was sold. Marcus was not present for the purchase, had not known about it until the deal was done. The best he could do was accept his uncle’s gift with what little grace he had left. 

Some grace. 

Marcus was stranded in his bed. The doctor said that there was no hope that he should walk again without a cane or a slave to help him along. Of course, his career was over. He needed no slip of paper to say so. Marcus had seen clearly the pity in Lutorius’ eyes when he had come for his single visit. 

The writing was on the wall, and it said: _you are brave and you are useless, and soon, you will be forgotten._

His mind was still groggy from the drugs when he saw Esca at the foot of his bed, silent and watchful. It seemed to Marcus that Esca was a ghost, not a slave, summoned up from the grave by a curse-tablet. But Esca had not died. Esca was no ghost.

After Marcus had swayed the crowd into sparing Esca’s life, he had been put immediately to market. The seller had hoped that the remarkable events of that afternoon would attract buyers, and so it had. 

Marcus was told by his uncle, in low tones, that the Brigante had once been based on a live subject. He had eventually been striped from his flesh and been given a body that would not age or break, so that he could serve his masters longer and more tirelessly. 

Esca had kept most of his human shape -- though there was a metallic cast to his skin, and there were small rivets that lined the side of his neck and chest. Faint seams crisscrossed his face and body. Marcus had heard that the tribesmen in the north marked their bodies with paints and scars, but all Esca’s marks were scratches and places where two plates had been welded together. 

It was a barbaric practice. In the capital there were numerous petitions signed against it, some of which the Senators even bothered to read. But that was in the Capital. This was the very edges of the Empire, in gods-forsaken Britannia -- just a little island set in the silver sea, half-forgotten, half-ignored by an Empire. 

Here, such liberal sentiments foundered and sank. 

Most people thought it would be better to die than to let such a thing happen to oneself. But Marcus remembered the fierce look on Esca’s face as he faced off against the gladiator. He was not a man to give up even a semblance of life until he was forced from it. 

 

Often, the same look would flit again Esca’s face -- when he bent to serve Marcus, his steel-sprung fingers hard and inhuman against the atrophying muscles of Marcus’ thighs. It had been months since the battle, and the doctor would not fit Marcus with a brace until he knew that Marcus’ leg was strong enough to take it. 

So they stretched, every day and without fail. Esca looked angry and blank all at once, his every move conveying the strength of which he used only a portion. They worked at it, stretching Marcus’ leg until it hung extended, immobile and painful, then pulled back, to more pain. Every day they did this. 

Pain washed over Marcus like a wave and clouded his mind. He felt helpless, frustrated at his own weakness. By turns he imagined the worst -- that death came to him from Esca’s hands. It was most dishonorable death possible for a man like him -- to be murdered by a slave, and unable to fight back.

But Esca did not hurt him. 

Esca could not hurt him, not when Marcus’ blood, Marcus’ fingerprints lodged where Esca’s beating heart had once been, and a song ran through his body, chanting _obey, obey, obey._

Marcus knew that, but knowing did not quiet his dark thoughts.

\+ 

 

Marcus dreaded the doctor’s final visit, when it would be decided whether he should keep the leg or not. He did not want an augmentation, he did not want to be less than what he was. 

“Like me,” Esca said with a flinty smile. He read Marcus far too easily.

“No,” Marcus said awkwardly, “it is only that --” 

“To be a Roman is to be fully human, to serve nothing but the Empire.” Esca knelt down, to lift Marcus up to his bed, but Marcus pushed him away. 

“My days of serving the Empire are over, you well know,” Marcus said, the bitterness rising in him as fresh as it had been the day he had received his discharge. 

 

“At least you had a choice to begin it,” Esca said briskly, finishing his task. 

The light went out and Marcus felt wretched. 

\+ 

 

The doctor conceded at last the Marcus’ leg could be put in a brace, and so it was. 

Soon, Marcus began to walk again. He did it slowly, with Esca’s help. His uncle’s villa in Calleva was set on flat land, surrounded by marshes. One evening as the the sun sank down in a golden haze, Marcus let go of Esca’s arm. 

He walked by himself, and staggered only once. 

Uncle Aquila and Stephanos came to watch as Marcus went to the end of the walkway, leading to the water. He turned to see them, and the old men congratulated him. Esca was mostly silent. Though when Marcus looked at him, Esca allowed himself a small smile. 

After that, Marcus pushed himself harder, for longer, until he could walk always without help, if not without pain. With this done, he turned his mind to what he would do for the rest of his days. His military ambitions were all for naught, but still, the thought of his father’s tarnished legacy preyed on his mind. 

The lost Eagle loomed in his thoughts, just out of reach. 

\+ 

 

As soon as he could, Marcus went hunting with Esca. They had been at it the whole afternoon when they emerged from the wood and into a small green meadow. In the distance, Marcus saw something stir in the grasses. Esca loosed an arrow and a doe fell to the ground. 

There was a sharp bark behind them. They turned to see a little wolf cub, staring up at them. He was all alone, and showed no fear. His ears twitched as a fly buzzed near them. When Marcus began to raise his spear, Esca stayed his hand. “His mother will be near.” 

And so she was -- a wolf’s howl made the cub prick up his ears and turn away. He darted off into the tall grasses and they saw him no more. 

They brought back the deer to Uncle Aquila’s house and in the evening, there was a feast. 

Marcus remembered the wolf-cub, and the familiar wildness in its eyes. He wondered if Esca also thought of him, and what he could represent. A different turning in the story, perhaps, a path they had not taken.

+

 

It was not to see Placidus’ smug face crumble into astonishment that Marcus said that he would retrieve the Eagle, but nonetheless, that was a pleasant side effect. 

Marcus turned to Esca to say -- “And you should have a choice to come with me or not.” But in the end he said nothing and Esca came with him, because he had no other choice.

\+ 

 

Beyond the Wall, the light was different. Mist filtered through it, until both seemed to merge, and become something more, or less. Gigantic shapes loomed, and then resolved themselves into a lichen-strewn boulder or a disinterested goat. 

Such emptiness was illusionary, as the sudden appearances of the tribesmen proved. They were all very wary and naturally suspicious, their weapons always out as Marcus and Esca approached. 

“Keep silent,” Esca said, when there was still a good distance between their two groups. “Do not speak, do not move until I tell you to. Your Empire has no power here.”

Marcus gave him a sullen look, but he obeyed Esca’s every word. 

\+ 

 

They could not make a fire and the heavens saw fit to pour on them a deluge of water. Marcus and Esca huddled together in a hollow of a stone cliff, getting wetter by the moment. 

Marcus asked, “How did it feel?” 

“What?” 

“To be … augmented completely.”

Esca was silent for a while. The seams on his skin seemed to glow, and he looked as grey as the stone at his back. He was splattered with mud, as Marcus was, and he wrapped his arms around himself, as if he was cold. 

Esca looked as miserable as Marcus felt. 

But. Esca’s skin could not be easily pierced, he was stronger than his slight frame promised, and he would never, ever stop until Marcus gave the word. 

“My mother,” Esca began, and then stopped. 

Marcus stirred. “Yes?” 

“My father killed her when he knew that all was lost, and then himself. She bared her throat to him, to make it easier. Neither of them would be slaves to Rome.” 

“But you did not chose that way.” 

Esca gave him a sardonic smile. “From then on, I got to choose very little, but yes, I did not choose that.” 

+

 

In the nights, it was bitterly cool, and Esca’s body laid next to him and gave off amazing warmth. Marcus was at odds, again, as to whether he wanted to bring Esca closer or push him away. In the end, Marcus proved a practical man, and rolled over to Esca, bumping against his chest.

Esca was stiff and unmoving in the beginning but then he sighed, pulling Marcus close to him. 

 

\+ 

Esca’s betrayal, when it came, left Marcus breathless. The blow that came afterwards did not hurt as much. That was a lie, but Marcus clung to it as he was dragged away, the stony ground embedding itself into his flesh. 

He felt numb, his mind blank, until the ceremony, until he saw his father’s Eagle again. 

+

 

When Marcus tore out the commands from Esca’s heart, he heard himself shouting, “I should have done this before we left, before, I should not have asked to you come when you had no choice.”

His hands were slick with blood, his blood. He crumpled to his knees before Esca, who collapsed beside him. Fluid dripped from the hole in Esca’s chest, and he said, a little disbelievingly, “We are mingled together, my brother.” 

Marcus nodded. Esca had almost been destroyed when they escaped from the village of the Seal People. His face had a smashed-in look to it, and he rattled when he moved, his parts had come loose somewhere. His chestplate had gone missing -- that was how Marcus could rip away his commands so easily. But perhaps worst of all was Esca’s right arm, which was almost completely severed.

. Esca flexed his other arm, experimentally, and then shook his head. 

“I cannot carry you,” he said, quietly. 

“And I cannot hold onto you,” Marcus said, lifting up his own broken arm a little. They had bound it with the remnants of Marcus’ cloak, but he would not be able to hang around Esca’s neck, not for long. 

Finally, he said, “Go, take the Eagle and flee. Have your freedom!” 

But Esca would not take the Eagle, and he would not go. 

“Please, you must go,” Marcus all but begged, all of his strength fled. He fell into mud, with Esca standing over him. 

“I will -- I will come back,” Esca said, and turned and ran, slower than he had once been.

\+ 

 

Marcus had no real expectation that he would see Esca again. That seemed just to him. 

Instead, he prepared, as one might, for a last stand. The woods whispered around him, and if he listened hard enough, he could hear the sound of many feet. 

Marcus took his weapons out and waited for the end to come. 

\+ 

 

But Marcus, not for the first time, had misjudged Esca. 

Against all odds, he had come back and brought with him Guern and the what remained of the Ninth. The fight that followed had been brutal and afterward, there had been many of the dead to bury. Marcus could not remember their flight back over the Wall and to Calleva. His leg had opened up again and begun to fester. 

Only bits and pieces of the journey back came to him. Holding on to Esca’s waist as the countryside blurred around them. The mutilated Eagle, now in Marcus’ hands. 

This thing, his father had died under, had died for. Bringing it back had not brought his father back, though Marcus had not expected it to -- except for that small part of him that remained a small boy, who wished only to see his father again. 

He did not even know if his father had fought and died well. But now, Marcus found himself equal to these thoughts that had once tormented him. It was as if they belonged to a different person, a Marcus who had not gone through what he had. 

Now they were on a transport to Londinium. Marcus was daydreaming in these memories when he was interrupted by Esca, moving in the seat next to his. 

Esca touched the plate over his chest where his manumission chip was buried. Esca had changed as well, and not only with his new arm and fittings. He had undergone a change more complete than than Marcus had but he took to freedom as warily as he did anything else. He was still cautious. 

His doubt was palpable. He thought it could all be taken away from him again. Marcus watched him and _wanted --_

He wanted to reassure Esca, to promise that he would never -- 

Never _again --_

Thoughts rushed through his head, too quickly for him to articulate, even privately. Instead, he bumped his shoulder against Esca’s, and when Esca looked at him, he smiled. 

Esca returned the smile, his happiness anything but cautious. 

\+ 

 

Marcus had half-decided to bury the Eagle in the soil of Britannia, and let it be forgotten. In the end, however, and with Esca’s and his Uncle’s advice, he decided to return the Eagle to the Empire. For sake of his father’s memory, and for those who had served with him, and who were lost. 

Afterwards, with the astonished voices of the governor’s staff still ringing in their ears, Marcus and Esca stepped onto the marble steps outside the governor’s palace. The cold, wet air, smelling of rain, slapping sharply against their faces. 

“Where do we go now?” Esca asked, and Marcus flushed, pleased that he should be included in the question. The rain had started to pour down on them, and the world seemed cleansed in a way that Marcus had never seen it before. 

As far as he could see, the buildings, the people, the very air -- it was a new world, just made visible to him. 

A world made new. 

“We can go wherever you would like to go, Esca.” And then, considering, “Perhaps, first, to the inn.” Esca grinned, and agreed. 

When finally the door of their room closed behind them, Marcus hesitated, wondering if he should do what he wished to do. He fell back into the bed, and It was up to Esca to take first step. “Thank you,” Esca said. 

Marcus shook his head vehemently, “There is nothing you should thank me for. I owe so much to you.” 

And before he could continue, Esca said, in a low voice, “Marcus, shut up.” Then he put a cool hand on Marcus’ hot face and leaned down. For a moment they were frozen like this. Marcus’ breath hitched and his stomach made slow somersaults in his belly. Esca reached out and touched Marcus’ chin. 

He looked thoughtful, as if he had imagined doing this for a very long time. 

“Esca...,” Marcus said, with difficulty, though Esca had let him go by then. 

Esca kissed him before he could say anything more.

 

**Finis.**

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, King Touchy and Anon, for beta-ing. 
> 
> The title is from Richard Sikken’s The Visible World.


End file.
